Feb 07
22
Moaning Call…
Mining stocks took on turn for the worse on the FTSE 100 on Wednesday declining from recent highs.
The index of leading shares slumped below the 6,400 mark to close 55.2 points down at 6357.1.
The shaky start on Wall Street was mainly behind the drop off with investors taking note of a higher than expected rise in US inflation.
Mining giant Anglo American suffered the biggest fall on the Footsie after stating plans to return £1.5 billion to shareholders, despite recording annual profits of £5.02 billion.
Stock closed down 66p at 2536p.
A drop off in metal prices and the news from Anglo America saw other firms in the sector losing out, with Antofagasta down 9p to 473p, BHP Billiton off the pace 18.5p to 1070.5p and Vedanta Resources losing out 9p to 1285p.
In the energy sector, BP shed almost two per cent, down 9.5p at 521.5p, on weaker oil prices and uncertainty over the resumption of operations at its offshore oil field in the Arctic Ocean.
Bucking the gloom
Bucking the gloom was Alliance & Leicester after it posted a seven per cent rise in annual profits to £585 million, some £5 million higher than market expectations.
Stock surged 83p to 1149p, a gain of more than seven per cent, after news that chief executive Richard Pym planned to step down.
Investors take note that his exit may expose the group to a takeover approach.
Online gaming group PartyGaming increased 11.4 per cent to 41.5p, with over 215 million shares changing hands.
PartyGaming is expected to report 2006 pre-tax profits of about $130 million next week.
Imperial Tobacco also rose amid continued takeover speculation, with shares up 40p to 2200p.
UK Coal grew four per cent to 478.5p on takeover talk.
Mobile phone firm Vodafone shed 2.3 per cent to 147p after Morgan Stanley sliced ten per cent from its 2008 earnings forecasts.
The top three FTSE winners were Alliance & Leicester, Imperial Tobacco, and Amvescap.
The bottom three losers were Anglo American, Smiths Group and GlaxoSmithKline down 29p at 1459p.
The FTSE 250 fell 43.9 points, or 0.4 per cent, to 11,543
